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Multi-bill heads to Parliament as PM seeks to enter last bailout stretch

The government will seek to clear the final hurdle to wrapping up the third review of Greece’s third bailout when a multi-bill including the tough prior actions it must implement is submitted in Parliament on Tuesday.

The vote will be held on Friday night after three days of debate which will serve as a last chance for lawmakers of ruling SYRIZA to raise objections and ask for the bill to be tweaked.

To this end, the party’s parliamentary group will convene this afternoon and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos will seek to sweeten the pill for concerned party lawmakers who fear that the government has betrayed its principles.

Tsakalotos is expected to make the case that there is no other course of action that will lead to the conclusion of the review, paving the way for Greece’s exit from the bailout program in the summer.

Lawmakers are mostly concerned about auctions of foreclosed properties and new regulations concerning labor strikes. With regard to the former, the government argues that the auctions must go ahead as it is the only way to avert a recapitalization of banks. The government has insisted that the homes of the working class are sufficiently protected.

Despite the objections raised by SYRIZA MPs, the government is confident that the multi-bill will be passed in Parliament without incident.

Speaking to his cabinet on Monday, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras claimed that his government “has not imposed even one euro more in measures.”

The remark drew a scathing response from opposition New Democracy, which noted that next year’s budget includes 1.9 billion euros in new measures.